At least for a day or so, we have a new Most Woke School in Boston — the Berklee College of Music.
How PC are they? They are never ever going to allow the Boston Police Department inside their restrooms again, because the school’s dithering administrators were outed, by a single student, on Instagram, for allowing the cops to use the facilities in the aftermath of a looting spree.
And now under the new rules of 2020, the entire school must first be shamed, and then cancelled.
Call it Potty Politics.
Which is why, after writing and rewriting a statement of abject apology for 10 days, the pathetic lame duck president Roger Brown put Berklee’s new policy not just in writing, but in boldface:
“Let us assure you, this should not have happened, and going forward, it will not happen again.”
I guess Berklee administrators figure they’re never going to need the Boston cops again. After all, the school only owns 26 or so buildings from Back Bay all the way to the Fenway.
They’re a mile or so from Methadone Mile, there was a murder a couple of years ago on the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston, one of their campus cops was assaulted by a homeless woman with a sharpened cane … it’s a bucolic, crime-free campus, in other words.
And, by the way, during the city’s recent orgy of looting and rioting, four of Berklee’s buildings either had windows busted out or were tagged with graffiti.
“Peaceful protests,” as President Brown put it. I’m sure he’s also telling that to the insurance company when he files for damages for all those buildings between Boylston and Hemenway streets.
During daylight hours on the day when the potty panic occurred, the BPD had some officers posted to the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston — you know, where the murder took place awhile back. Those cops were allowed to use the facilities in the lobby of the Berklee Performance Center.
When the video was posted, all hell broke loose, which was why it took Berklee’s paper shufflers more than a week to draft their, uh, mea culpa.
“We have heard from many of you personally and across social channels of your hurt and anger that this access was permitted. … We understand that many members of our community feel betrayed. We are deeply sorry for the impact this had and for perpetuating feelings of oppression, silencing, and marginalization. We will make a more concerted effort to consider the effects of our actions.”
By barring sworn officers of the law from the school’s bathrooms.
This groveling apology raises more questions. When they stand in the bathroom door, what do the longhairs tell the cops – “Hold it?” That’s what AG Maura Healey suggested should be done by any women who objected to cross-dressing men invading their ladies’ rooms.
Here’s another irony of the Berklee Bathroom Brouhaha. Most of the cops who were stationed there that day, I am told, were members of the sexual assault unit. And what, exactly, has Berklee been most often in the news for over the last few years?
Sexual harassment and assaults by their faculty.
Remember the headlines: “Berklee let teachers quietly leave after alleged sex abuse, and pushed students for silence.”
Silence — there’s that favorite word of Roger Brown’s again. Apparently he was for “silencing” his students before he was against “silencing” them.
According to news reports, 11 Berklee faculty members were “terminated” for sexual harassment between 2004 and 2017. No wonder some refer to the school as “Pervlee.”
Here’s a selection of descriptions of Berklee before it threw the cops out of the bathrooms:
“Students reported being assaulted, groped or pressured into sex with their teachers, according to court documents … tolerated lecherous behavior … ‘I was too drunk’ … pressuring her to have sex … predatory behavior … open season … asked to join him in a public restroom to shake his (bleep) … silenced the accusers through financial settlements with gag orders attached.”
In other words, silencing. How Pervlee is it?
No wonder the administrators didn’t want anybody from the BPD’s sexual-assault unit anywhere near the campus.
It’s okay, I guess, for the cops to have to dodge bullets on Tremont Street, or flee as their cruisers are torched by Molotov cocktails. The real outrage is if they … use the bathroom.
But the academic hacks can no longer be seen as un-woke. So they insult the BPD and throw their own 20-officer police force and its chief, David Ransom, under the bus.
“Boston Police of course have jurisdiction over the roads and other public spaces around our campus, but not inside our buildings.”
I’m pretty sure that’s not true, but even if it is, maybe if the BPD had had more jurisdiction, Berkee’s female students might not have been groped or assaulted in such large numbers by their esteemed faculty members.
In case you were wondering, tuition, fees and room and board at Berklee for the 2020-21 school year will be $66,040.